Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff, lorn volgebum here and I am recording this episode live from the iHeart Podcast studio powered by Bows at the House of Music at the iHeartRadio Music Festival. So yes, I'm in a booth at a music festival and I'm about to talk to you about hanging upside down. Here's where we are. Okay, So, does hanging upside down make you feel a little panicky? Like it might explode your head, like all your spit might pool in your nose and drown you, Or like your eyes might pop out of their sockets and PLoP on the floor. Don't worry, none of those didn't happen. But hanging out in a head down position isn't completely harmless either. In fact, being suspended upside down for too long might not eject your eyeballs, although it can occasionally lead to a temporary loss of vision in some people, but it would eventually kill you, basically of asphyxiation or heart failure. It turns out your lungs evolved to sit on top of all of your other organs for a reason. Being as delicate as they are. It doesn't take them long to get squished by the bigger, heavier organs like the liver and intestines that usually sit below them. This isn't as much of a problem when you're, say, lying on an incline with your feet slightly elevated above your head, But when your head is directly underneath your feet, your lungs simply can't expand enough to absorb enough oxygen to fuel your body given the available space that they have to work with. But it's not just the lungs you have to worry about during extended periods of reverse suspension. Our bodies are well set up to move blood around when we're standing upright, and our blood vessels are customized to make sure that blood doesn't cool in our feet due to gravity, but that system is a one way street. Our bodies did not evolve to prevent blood from pooling in the head. This can actually be a bit of a problem for astronauts hanging out in the near zero gravity of orbit. It makes their sinuses swell up with blood, which makes them feel a little stuffy. But more critically, should blood pool in the brain, specifically as it could during prolonged upside down suspension in normal earth gravity, all sorts of things could go wrong, including ruptured blood vessels, which can lead to brain hemorrhage or which is bad. However, medical professionals think heart failure is the cause of death in most upside down fatalities for much the same reason that our brains can suffer. When your head down, your heart slows down, it's pumping and starts receiving more blood than it has the capacity to manage at one time. It begins to have a hard time maintaining blood pressure and eventually loses its ability to move around enough blood to maintain all of the body's essential functions. But okay, here's a weird thing. Although hanging upside down can occasionally or eventually kill you, if you take it in shorter stints, it can converse pretty compelling health benefits. Inverted poses in disciplines like yoga encourage blood to flow from the feet, legs, and pelvis back to the heart and lungs, where it picks up fresh oxygen. The studies have shown that over time, brief inversions can lower the resting heart rate, increase overall endurance, and help your body use oxygen more efficiently during exercise. And Although in vers suspension can be dangerous. It's actually pretty rare that people die from it. Just for example, when a Belgian roller coaster failed in nineteen ninety seven, stranding a group of riders upside down for about an hour and a half. Everyone survived the ordeal just fine. There doesn't even seem to be a hard and fast rule about how long it's safe to hang out upside down. We do know that anyone with a pre existing heart or lung condition should be more cautious about it. But the rule of thumb seems to be if you're upside down and start to feel like you should stop, then stop, which is a pretty good rule for pretty much anything when it comes to our weird and wonderful bodies. Today's episode was recorded live at the iHeart Podcast Studio powered by Bows at the House of Music at iHeartRadio Music Festival. It's based on the article how long can a person safely hang upside Down? On how Stuffworks dot Com written by Jeslin Shields. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey brain Stuff, lorn volgebum here and I am recording this episode live from the iHeart Podcast studio powered by Bows at the House of Music at the iHeartRadio Music Festival. So yes, I'm in a booth at a music festival and I'm about to talk to you about hanging upside down. Here's where we are. Okay, So, does hanging upside down make you feel a little panicky? Like it might explode your head, like all your spit might pool in your nose and drown you, Or like your eyes might pop out of their sockets and PLoP on the floor. Don't worry, none of those didn't happen. But hanging out in a head down position isn't completely harmless either. In fact, being suspended upside down for too long might not eject your eyeballs, although it can occasionally lead to a temporary loss of vision in some people, but it would eventually kill you, basically of asphyxiation or heart failure. It turns out your lungs evolved to sit on top of all of your other organs for a reason. Being as delicate as they are. It doesn't take them long to get squished by the bigger, heavier organs like the liver and intestines that usually sit below them. This isn't as much of a problem when you're, say, lying on an incline with your feet slightly elevated above your head, But when your head is directly underneath your feet, your lungs simply can't expand enough to absorb enough oxygen to fuel your body given the available space that they have to work with. But it's not just the lungs you have to worry about during extended periods of reverse suspension. Our bodies are well set up to move blood around when we're standing upright, and our blood vessels are customized to make sure that blood doesn't cool in our feet due to gravity, but that system is a one way street. Our bodies did not evolve to prevent blood from pooling in the head. This can actually be a bit of a problem for astronauts hanging out in the near zero gravity of orbit. It makes their sinuses swell up with blood, which makes them feel a little stuffy. But more critically, should blood pool in the brain, specifically as it could during prolonged upside down suspension in normal earth gravity, all sorts of things could go wrong, including ruptured blood vessels, which can lead to brain hemorrhage or which is bad. However, medical professionals think heart failure is the cause of death in most upside down fatalities for much the same reason that our brains can suffer. When your head down, your heart slows down, it's pumping and starts receiving more blood than it has the capacity to manage at one time. It begins to have a hard time maintaining blood pressure and eventually loses its ability to move around enough blood to maintain all of the body's essential functions. But okay, here's a weird thing. Although hanging upside down can occasionally or eventually kill you, if you take it in shorter stints, it can converse pretty compelling health benefits. Inverted poses in disciplines like yoga encourage blood to flow from the feet, legs, and pelvis back to the heart and lungs, where it picks up fresh oxygen. The studies have shown that over time, brief inversions can lower the resting heart rate, increase overall endurance, and help your body use oxygen more efficiently during exercise. And Although in vers suspension can be dangerous. It's actually pretty rare that people die from it. Just for example, when a Belgian roller coaster failed in nineteen ninety seven, stranding a group of riders upside down for about an hour and a half. Everyone survived the ordeal just fine. There doesn't even seem to be a hard and fast rule about how long it's safe to hang out upside down. We do know that anyone with a pre existing heart or lung condition should be more cautious about it. But the rule of thumb seems to be if you're upside down and start to feel like you should stop, then stop, which is a pretty good rule for pretty much anything when it comes to our weird and wonderful bodies. Today's episode was recorded live at the iHeart Podcast Studio powered by Bows at the House of Music at iHeartRadio Music Festival. It's based on the article how long can a person safely hang upside Down? On how Stuffworks dot Com written by Jeslin Shields. Brain Stuff is production of by Heart Radio in partnership with HowStuffWorks dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts from my Heart Radio visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.